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"I ONLY GOT ONE LAW: A KID WHO TELLS ON ANOTHER KID IS A DEAD KID."

Inspired by real-life incidents, Over The Edge is an incendiary ode to teen rebellion that quickly became a Gen X/punk-rock touchstone, and a key influence on filmmakers such as Richard Linklater and musicians like Kurt Cobain (who often cited it as his favourite film).

New Granada is a brand new ‘planned community’, miles from the noise and crime of the big city and a perfect place to raise a family. The only problem is they forgot to build anything for the kids to do. Bored out of their minds and stuck in the middle of nowhere, the teens in the town, led by Carl (Michael Kramer) and Richie (an effortlessly charismatic Matt Dillon in his first film role), do pretty much anything to fill the time, quickly escalating from drugs and sex to petty crime. A rash action by an overzealous local police officer (Harry Northup, Taxi Driver) sets in motion a face-off between the frustrated kids and their clueless parents that will lead to explosive, destructive consequences...

Armed with a classic ‘70s rock soundtrack (including Cheap Trick, Ramones and Van Halen), energetic direction by Jonathan Kaplan (White Line Fever) and an intelligent script by Tim Hunter (River’s Edge) and Charlie Haas (Matinee), Over The Edge still packs a righteously powerful punch today, and makes its worldwide Blu-Ray debut with brand new bonus features interviewing the cast and crew.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray transfer
• Original uncompressed mono audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Archive commentary by director Jonathan Kaplan, producer George Litto and writers Tim Hunter & Charlie Haas
• New commentary by star Michael Kramer and journalist Mike Sacks
• Isolated music and effects track
• Wide Streets + Narrow Minds, an exclusive retrospective documentary featuring newly recorded interviews with cast and crew, including Jonathan Kaplan, Tim Hunter, Charlie Haas, talent scouts Jane Bernstein and Linda Feferman, production designer Jim Newport, stars Michael Kramer, Harry Northup, Vincent Spano, Pamela Ludwig, Julia Pomeroy, Kim Kliner, Diane Reilly, Eric Lalich and others
• Full post-film Q&A from a 2010 screening at the Walter Reade Theater in New York, featuring Litto, Hunter, Haas, Bernstein, Northup, Kramer, Ludwig, Pomeroy and Tom Fergus
• Excerpts from the Projection Booth podcast episode on the film, including discussion by Mike White, Leon Chase and Heather Drain, plus interviews with Haas, Hunter, Spano, Northup and Andy Romano
• Destruction: Fun or Dumb?, the full educational short excerpted within the film, in high definition
• US theatrical trailer and TV spots
• UK VHS promo
• Image galleries
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sister Hyde
  FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing by Kim Morgan and Henry Blyth, and the original San Francisco Examiner article that inspired the film

*** EXTRAS STILL IN PRODUCTION AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE ***

God, this is a fantastic-looking release. So glad they were able to return the wonderful original commentary with Kaplan, the two screenwriters, and the producer.
Jonathan Kaplan is such an underrated director, and I hope this signals more of his films coming to HD.

This is WB in the states, who has it in the UK?

domino harvey wrote: Fri Feb 26, 2021 5:18 pm This is WB in the states, who has it in the UK?

James Flower tells the story on Twitter on how he came to licence the UK rights himself

I think whoever controls MGM titles, so it's probably a Network like situation

Edit: And never mind, as it's explained in the above post

George Litto, the film's producer, put up the lion's share of the film's budget and kept rights outside North America as a result.

Well gee, this film is fantastic and clearly a lot of love went into Arrow's release. As much as people here like films about youth, I dare say this one's a must-see

I just rewatched this film for the first time in a couple of decades, and it has lost none of its power. What an incredible work by everyone involved, and it fits just beautifully into Tim Hunter's early filmography.

There's a feeling of ennui and anger in this, and in Tex, River's Edge and Sylvester, that captures, with genuine honesty, that "in-between" period in a young person's life when you realize that adults are as damaged and as full of shit as anyone, and when you're just old enough to actually get in trouble for the things that you do, but, no matter how badly you want to escape your situation, not old enough to have any real agency to do anything about it.

I can also absolutely confirm that this wonderful edition from Arrow is region free and well worth the shipping cost.

The Outsiders and Rumble Fish aside, other films with thematic similarities that I think would make great double-bills: Little Darlings, Lean on Pete, Season 4 of The Wire, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Joe, Flirting, The Edge of Seventeen, George Washington, Mud, The Chocolate War, The Spectacular Now, Eighth Grade and, oddly enough, I also think of Boaz Yakin's Fresh as spiritual kin to all of them.

Phrased that way I wonder what happened to Hunter? The last thing I saw from him was a particularly atrocious Nic Cage movie.

Like many other directors of his generation, he finds it very hard to get a film greenlit nowadays, but if you look at his resume he’s directed episodes of pretty much every important American TV drama of the last three decades.

That’s unfortunate especially as someone who doesn’t really get television.

One of my favourite ever books on film is Jim Hillier's The New Hollywood (1992), which interviews several of that generation of filmmakers that came out of AFI, NYU and New World Pictures in the 1970s and 1980s; a huge influence on my tastes upon discovering it as a teenager (and almost certainly where I first heard of Over The Edge). It's very striking reading it now how few of the directors interviewed are still actually working in film, but instead transitioned to TV work, from big players like Joe Dante to more obscure talents like Aaron Lipstadt. Hunter's CV boasts key episodes of Twin Peaks, Mad Men, Deadwood, Breaking Bad, Hannibal, and many others, so certainly not a career to sniff at.